Monday, September 01, 2014

The rest of the day was spent sightseeing (that ghastly word). First stop, the Chamundeshwari Temple
just outside Mysore. An impressive sight, in several ways. For one, the surroundings were spotlessly clean. Then I could
spot only two special queues, priced at Rupees twenty and a hundred
respectively. The five-figure obnoxiousness characteristic of so many
temples in this country was thankfully absent. And this is something
I have never been able to either
understand or reconcile with what I consider basic human values: why
should your wallet determine how close you can get to god? Another
thing I much appreciate was the absence of those detestable "Non-Hindus Not Allowed"
placards so prevalent in places like Orissa. Mr David and
Amita had no compunctions about going in. So who stayed out? Heh.

It was not solely because of my agnostic outlook. The temple
and its immediate environs presented excellent photo opportunities.
That's what I did the whole time
the rest were away. Take photographs and observe generally.
There was plenty to observe, as there usually is near bustling temples.
Like that sign proclaiming "Coconut Broken Place" (for the
uninitiated, this indicates the place meant for breaking coconuts -
certain rituals require the beneficiary to smash a coconut
by hitting it very hard on the ground). Or the 'Godly Museum' just
outside the temple premises. Another was the board outside
the "Ladu [sic] Prasada Counter", which listed consecrated laddus
for ten Rupees apiece, two for twenty and (surprise) four for forty.
Perhaps their Holinesses of the temple management committee have
transcended mundane considerations like economy of scale? To be fair,
the laddus were priced reasonably, well within the budget of most
devotees.

A brief halt at the Nandi Bull idol, and then another famous place of worship, the Nanjundeshwara Temple at Nanjangud. I stayed out this one too. But this time I had a task to
fulfil. someone (most likely my mother, don't recall exactly)
was feeling slightly unwell, so I set off to locate a pharmacy. It took
me much longer than I had expected: the nearest one was a good walk
away, and I misunderstood the directions I got from a kindly soul.
But in the process I was able to experience - and photograph - parts of
this lovely old town most outsiders are oblivious to. I wish I had more
time to explore the place.

Next stop, the Mysore Palace
once again. This time we went inside to see the portion that had been converted into a museum. Which turned out to be a
cumbersome procedure. First we had to deposit our cameras. Next we had
to buy tickets, of course. Then came the strangest part - we had to
take off our shoes and deposit them at a designated counter. I have no
idea why this was mandated. Perhaps it was to help preserve
the antique tiled floor of the palace, or maybe the idea
of plebians clomping around with their shoes on did not go down well
with remnants of the erstwhile royal family. The experience was made
even more unpleasant by the stone paving on the footpaths, which had
turned blistering hot in the midday sun. A few stray pieces of coconut
matting had been laid out over them, but they were too prickly to
comfortably walk on, and in any case so tattered as to be almost useless. Even the museum proved a massive disappointment. It contained
little of true historical significance. Mostly it ran to
bric-a-brac of various kinds ('objay dar' or 'French for junk', as the great Wodehouse
put it) - mementoes gifted by visiting potenates or grateful sections
of the vassalage; old furniture and carpets; portraits, that sort of
thing.

Another unpleasant surprise awaited us as we came out. Some genius had come up with the idea of organising horse- and
elephant-rides on that part of the palace grounds. So now we had to not just hop-skip barefooted across scorching paving-tiles, but also take care not to step on the animal dung liberally decorating the pathways. We discovered the titular
Maharaja had opened up to the public some parts of the wing he still
retained. Some seventy Rupees gained you the privilege of inspecting
items of everyday royal life - toys, clothes, pots, pans and that sort of thing.
Adithi and Amita elected to check this out, the rest of us hopped over
to a row of snack outlets and treated ourselves to lukewarm fruit juice.

The Jaganmohan Palace was vastly more enjoyable. Its collection of
paintings was magnificent, no two ways to it. Some tend to
exaggerate its excellence: I came across a webpage that claims "such works of
Rembrandt can be found nowhere in the world except in Russia" and then goes on insist it also features works by master [sic] like P.P.
Ruben [sic], Titan [sic],
A. Caddy (who?) and miniatures by Gunoy (once again, who?). It turned
out that the
only (Western) old masters on display were specially commissioned copies. But no
regrets - the magnificent Indian art collection more than made up
for it.

Take painters from Bengal. The biggies were all there - Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy - and represented by some of their finest works too. And then there were several pieces by lesser-known Shantiniketan
exponents, names I had not come across before. I wouldn't call them
inspired, exactly - some of them tended a bit too heavily towards
Chinese or Japanese stylistic cues. But that's just what made them
interesting in my eyes, as outcomes of a cerebral process, that is, of
a conscious, reasoned attempt to reduce various Indian and Far-Eastern
styles into their bare distillates, and then synthesise them into a new
idiom. And then of course the fabled Ravi Varma collection. I confess
I'm not a fan of his, find him a bit too schmaltzy for my tastes. But the
works on display here were still a treat, in a cosy, sentimental,
feel-good manner. Something like Mahendra Kapoor's musical output [1], pleasant and nostalgia-evoking in its own way though in my view a mere shadow of Rafi's staggering genius.

The musical instruments section was unquestionably the most rewarding part
of the day. Indian musical instruments contain many
sophisticated features, but their constitutive specifications have
never
been standardised through convention. As a result, they display much
greater
variance than western ones do in their dimensions, tonal range, pitch,
timbre, and at times
even the number of playing and other strings.
Good quality instruments are always ordered bespoke
from master-luthiers, who handcraft each piece according to
specifications the client supplies. An instrument thus amounts to a
record of the specific tonal and behavioural qualities the
customer-musician desires from it.

But then again, musicians are not
always the sole arbiters of what constitutes good music; their target
audience must also be of the same mind. And this goes for the tone and
behaviour of instruments too. In the last century, Zia Mohiuddin Dagar
and Vilayat Khan made radical modifications to the Rudra Veena and the
Sitar respectively. They both enjoyed successful musical careers. But
would they have been considered successful if their audiences had not
accepted as meaningful their organological innovations? And in the era of princely states acceptability counted for much more given its crucial influence on royal patronage, musicians' chief source of livelihood back then.

This is why the exhibit was so remarkable. Each instrument was
represented by versions from different eras lined up together. So by
merely looking at them we get a clear idea of how they evolved
structurally - and tonally too - over centuries. This was the
only time I found frustrating their policy of not allowing cameras
inside museums. I'd
have loved to keep a visual record of those insightful displays. Just
to work off the frustration, when collecting the camera from the
deposit counter I loosed off a few shots of the palace's interior. It
gives some idea of just how graceful the edifice looks from the inside.

Next stop, lunch at a place called Kamat. Its open-air dining area was
truly beautiful - a large, intensely green space divided into smaller
canopied enclosures, with chiks
(thin cane
screens) draped over the sides imparting a sense of privacy and
seclusion from other diners. All in all, we enjoyed the ambience
more than the food which, barring some terrific fried fish, was decent
but not remarkable. (We had decided to forgo for once our
self-imposed vegetarianism.) At Daria Daulat Bagh, Tipu's summer
palace, my
father-in-law and I sat in the car while the others went inside. They
came back about an hour later complaining how dilapidated and
ill-maintained it was. I of course knew about all this, which is why I
didn't bother to go there in the first place. One point of interest, I spotted one of those Kerala-registered autorickshaws I had first noticed at Tipu Sultan's tomb. Wonder what they were doing there, and how they got into Karnataka in the first place. I sat out the visit to
the Ranganathaswamy Temple too. No surprise there - I was tired, and in
any case never too enthusiastic about temples.

On the way back we made another very enjoyable visit to Maddur
Tiffanyss. Then we stopped for a good length of time at
Chennapatna, a town famous for laquered wooden toys. We went crazy
here, buying the most extraordinary toys for the newborn. One
couldn't blame us, really, the toys were so, so attractive.

Adithi
opted for something whose extraordinary ingenuity I still marvel at. It
consists of a circular disc with a handle, approximating the
size and shape of a table-tennis bat. Five little wooden chickens dot
the outer edge of the disc, their jointed necks connected by threads to
a wooden ball suspended below. Joggling the contrivance in a circle
(the way one fries a thin omelette) pulls down each neck one at a time,
making the chickens look like they are by turns pecking at the rice
grains painted on the centre. A diverting spectacle, but not my out-and-out
favourite. That accolade has to go to a wooden cow which bounces up and down
on a long spring, something like a yo-yo. Daughter and self find
its sheer silliness irresistible. It seldom fails to elicit a giggle
from the both of us. But perhaps this is only natural; the difference
in our mental ages isn't all that much.